The article explores Ireland's participation in the exchange rate mechanism (ERM) of the European Monetary System since mid-1986. It has been found that membership of the ERM per se did not have the expected moderating influence on interest rates. Ireland's participation in the ERM was intended...

Is inflation targeting an appropriate framework for monetary policy? Experience from the inflation-targeting countries countries are optimistic about inflation targeting as a monetary-policy framework. South Africa is also following this trend.The international literature review of the topic...

This paper explores issues that arise in implementing monetary policy under conditions of sustained price stability. We discuss several issues that concern the selection of a central bank's inflation objective under such conditions: price measurement; the behavior of other key variables,...

The optimal inflation tax is computed in monetary models where money is costly to supply. The models are simple general equilibrium models with money in the utility function or a transactions technology. The inflation tax is a means of raising taxes to finance exogenous government expenditures....

This article describes and defends the authors' corrections to the federal government's flawed measure of its cost of funds. Further, it examines how the maturity structure of the debt influences the way inflation risk and interest rate risk are shared by the government and its creditors.